


If I Forget Everything Else

by mostladylikeladythateverladied



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Amnesia, Anal Fisting, Angst with a Happy Ending, Explicit Sexual Content, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, discussion of terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-20 03:28:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16547984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostladylikeladythateverladied/pseuds/mostladylikeladythateverladied
Summary: Two years after the Ceremonial Duel, life is good for Bakura. He's making a tabletop horror game with Ryou and he's dating Malik, the love of his life.It all crumbles away when he begins to forget things. Little things at first, then large swaths of his life slip from his mind. As his memories fail, so does his health. Medicine has no answer, so Malik and Ryou turn to the supernatural to find a cause and a cure before they lose Bakura again.





	1. The woods are lovely,

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Mainstream_Deviant (https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mainstream_Deviant) for beta'ing this fic!
> 
> Thank you to MidKnight (http://mid-k-night.tumblr.com/) for their fantastic artwork!
> 
> And thank you to the Alchemy of Thiefshipping mods for hosting this collection!

Ryou’s apartment door screamed at Malik when he passed through it.

He rolled his eyes. It wasn’t even October yet but Ryou’s apartment was already transformed into a veritable haunted house. Ryou’s family portraits were replaced with strangers’ faces, who had the misfortune of frightful spirits leaning over their shoulders when viewed from a certain angle. Jack-o-lanterns lined the stairs leading to the upper hallway, the candles within them flickering and making their carved, screaming faces seem to laugh and sneer. Bloody handprints smeared the walls as if an unfortunate victim clawed desperately at the plaster but failed to escape their grisly fate.

The place was already a mess of scattered game parts and half painted figurines on the best of days - the overabundant Halloween decorations were _not_ helping.

The apartment was brightly lit, which ruined the intended atmosphere. Malik appreciated it, knowing the pair living here would prefer it dark to set the mood. They always switched on every light in the place when Malik visited.

“Aren’t you overdoing it a little?” Malik called into the living room. He removed his riding jacket and slipped off his shoes, setting them next to a fake, hairy spider. “How can you work in this mess?”

“The atmosphere helps,” Bakura replied from out of sight in the direction of the kitchen. “We _are_ making a horror game.”

As it had been for the past three months, since Ryou and Bakura decided to become tabletop game designers, the coffee table was set with a partially finished and impressively large diorama. Malik watched their progress over the weeks of work; watched the board get filled in with ghoulish landscapes and menacing structures, watched the cards and figurines accompanying it grow from rough sketches to completed designs.

The rotting buildings of the haunted town they’d been crafting seemed finished. Bakura told Malik the town was the victim of a terrible tragedy. The game began when players listened to the wandering spirits’ plights and set out to right the wrongs committed against them.

Malik looked closely at the newest painting on the board - a sinister river separating the town from the otherwise blank board. Grasping hands reached up from the depths. The shapes of staring, dead eyes could just barely be seen in the curved brushstrokes.

Malik moved towards his boyfriend’s voice, batting away the cobwebs draped over the archway. “The screaming door is a nice touch. I’m sure your neighbors love it.”

“Fuck ‘em,” was Bakura’s easy reply.

The kitchen didn’t see much cooking these days. Instead, it was a supply hub of paints, plastics and blank canvases. If Ryou and Bakura wanted food, they ordered out or showed up at Malik’s apartment. Or, as they had tonight, asked Malik to pick something up on his way over.

Bakura was washing paint brushes in the sink, so Malik dropped the bag of takeout and slipped his arms around Bakura’s hips. He massaged his thumbs into the strip of skin revealed by Bakura’s shirt riding up.

“Fuck off,” Bakura said. He didn’t push Malik’s hands away, though.

“Long day?”

“Publisher wanted a progress report and Ryou wanted to show off. I painted that fucking river this morning, then spent all afternoon sketching concept art while he played with the 3D printer. My hands fucking hurt.” Bakura shut off the water and angrily flicked the excess liquid off his hands.

“I can do something about that.” Malik moved to Bakura’s side and took his hands. He could feel the wrinkles in Bakura’s pruning fingertips and the dryness of his skin from scrubbing with too much soap.

He kissed the rough knuckles, mouthing the skin calloused by countless fist fights long in the past. He worked his fingers over Bakura’s in small circles, rubbing away the stiffness under his skin.

“Oh, that’s…” Bakura sighed, his face sagging into a look of bliss. Malik grinned and nibbled on his fingertips while his hands made their way to Bakura’s palm. He eased the stress of the day away, then did the same for the other hand. He finished the massage for each hand with a kiss to the palm.

“Where’s Ryou? I went to that dessert bar he likes and brought him something sugary and horribly unhealthy.”

If allowed to, Ryou would eat sweets for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Bakura couldn’t stand sweetness. He’d grown up on the simple foods he could manage to steal; bread and beer mostly. Sugar disagreed with his palate and churned his stomach. He preferred heavily spiced foods and slabs of meat, which were once a rare indulgence.

“Changing clothes. Why are you spoiling him and not me?” Bakura complained. It was weak, but Bakura couldn’t manage more fervent bitching than that. The massage felt _really_ good.

“Oh, babe, I plan on spoiling you all night long as soon as I get you alone,” Malik teased, “I brought curry. Pork for you and Ryou, vegan for me.”

“I knew there’s a reason I keep you around.” Bakura lifted himself onto his tiptoes to kiss Malik.

The sound of footsteps on the stairs announced Ryou’s appearance. He giggled when he walked in on Malik and Bakura’s kiss and said, “Am I interrupting?”

Bakura snapped _Yes_ just as Malik said _No_. Ryou gave Bakura an unamused look.

“Are you going to be mad all night? If you are, I’m eating in my room.”

“Mad I worked my fingers off while you sat on your ass pressing buttons? Yes!”

“I’d be happy to let you use the printer if you didn’t almost break it. Twice.”

Ryou and Bakura bickered in between mouthfuls of food. Malik ate his own curry and enjoyed the show. It was entertaining to have Bakura’s ire directed at someone else. Usually, he and Malik were the ones arguing over nothing. Bakura and Ryou were reaching the end of their ropes with fighting off the game publisher sticking its fingers into their passion project, so it was good for them to go off.

“Are you going home with Malik?” Ryou asked a beat after calling Bakura an egotistical jackass. The argument faded away as if it never happened, the only evidence of it being the splatter of curry on the wall from when Bakura flicked his fork in Ryou’s direction.

“Yeah. If I have to see that damn game in the morning, I’m throwing it out the window.”

“Uh-huh,” Ryou said flatly. “Get out of here, then. You wreck that game and I’m kicking you out. Oh, before you do, can you repaint the river?”

“Excuse me?” Bakura snapped, “What’s wrong with it?”

“I sent pictures to the publisher, and he said the screaming faces were kinda lame. I agree with him, ‘Kura. So could you paint over them?”

“Lame? I contoured the faces into the waves and the foam, it’s fucking subtle!”

“It’s played out. You missed most of the history of the horror genre, so you wouldn’t know that. The hands are cool, it’s just the faces. C’mon, ‘Kura, trust me on this.”

Bakura slammed his almost empty take out container onto the kitchen counter. He knocked the side of a paint tray and colors flew into the air. Bakura ignored the mess he’d just made and stomped into the living room, grabbing paintbrushes and a blue themed collection of paints as he went.

Ryou indignantly wiped green paint from his cheek.

* * *

 

Malik chatted with Ryou in the kitchen until Bakura’s furious mutterings from the living room died down.

“Think it’s safe?” Ryou asked with a giggle.

Malik grinned and led the way back to Bakura. When they entered, Bakura was closing a book and tossing it over his shoulder. It nearly landed in his paints, making Ryou cry out.

“Bakura, that’s mine! Don’t throw it around like that!”

Ryou gathered up the book and cradled it protectively. He turned it this way and that to assure it was unstained and flipped through the pages. He sighed in relief.

“What are you even doing with this?” Ryou asked. “This is one of my spellbooks.”

“Reference,” Bakura grunted shortly. He waved a hand at the game board. Malik examined the revised river.

Instead of eyes and the vague shape of faces, the waves and foam of the rushing river were now curved together with arcane symbols. If the faces were subtle, this was even more so. Only a careful observer would notice anything amiss. Bakura should do all his painting pissed off if this was the result.

“Bakura, what did you _do_?” Ryou sounded exasperated with an undercurrent of worry. Malik looked down at the symbols again but didn’t have the mystical knowledge Ryou and Bakura did to figure out the cause of Ryou’s worry. “This book is for summoning spirits!”

“It’s just a random jumble of symbols, they don’t mean anything.” Bakura lifted himself up from the ground and wiped his hands on his pants. Malik didn’t miss the wince in his expression as he did so.

“There’s no such thing as an arcane inscription that doesn’t mean anything! What page were you looking at? I want to know exactly what you did!”

“I pulled symbols from all over the book, none of them are related! I didn’t paint a full summoning spell, for fuck’s sake. If I accidentally summoned a demon into our living room, we’d fucking notice.”

“You can’t be this careless!” Ryou protested. “You spent _three-thousand years_ with a demon digging its claws into your soul! Even a minor possession leaves a chasm spirits can slip into. Why do you think I cleanse the apartment once a week? It’s because we’re both vulnerable. Especially _you_!”

Bakura looked taken aback. Malik rubbed his temples. Did Bakura not notice the ritual cleansings performed under his own damn roof? Or did he not consider they were for his sake?

Well, it was nice to know why Bakura hadn’t moved in with him yet. Ryou resisted the idea and Bakura wouldn’t directly go against his former host. Ryou didn’t trust Bakura to keep himself un-possessed. Apparently, for good reason. Bakura being careless with magic was hardly unusual.

Ryou took Bakura’s hand and pulled him off the living room’s carpet and onto the hardwood in front of the door.

“Sit down. I’m going to banish any malevolent spirits you may have conjured.”

Bakura obediently sat, which told Malik he’d been thoroughly rebuked.

Watching Ryou work magic was a thing of beauty. He drew arcane geometry and symbols with the same confidence and ease he wrote in his native language. He worked his way around Bakura, drawing on the hardwood in chalk, only occasionally looking into a spellbook (how many did he have?) for reference.

Bakura was no slouch with magic either. He had a very different approach than Ryou, however. He made magic his bitch with pure will. He didn’t cast with symbols or circles, he simply directed his intention and his magic obeyed. If Ryou’s craft was the result of meticulous practice and research, Bakura’s was the result of pure instinct.

Both methods had their benefits and drawbacks. Ryou sometimes took _hours_ to cast his spells, while Bakura needed no time at all. However, Bakura wasn’t much good for the precise, delicate work Ryou’s magic was capable of.

Malik found it amusing; Bakura could fiddle any fussy lock into opening, could walk across broken glass without making a sound - but his magic was a wild and boisterous force.

“I didn’t feel anything,” Bakura grumbled after Ryou was done speaking the spell aloud. He exited the circle, deliberately shuffling over the chalk.

“It doesn’t hurt to be absolutely sure,” Ryou said.

Malik grabbed Bakura and kissed him. Bakura gave a surprised squeak that was so endearing, Malik had to kiss him a few more times.

“Seems fine to me,” Malik concluded, licking his lips.

“That’s an…unorthodox way to check for possession,” Ryou laughed. The tension left Bakura when he chortled a bit, too. Whatever annoyance they directed at each other faded once again.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Bakura said to Malik, “before the publisher wants more changes and I actually summon a demon to bite his head off.”

Malik retrieved his jacket and slipped it on. Bakura ran a hand over the smooth leather and squeezed Malik’s biceps. He always appreciated Malik in riding leathers. So much so he’d been fucked bent over Malik’s bike more than once.

Bakura zipped on his favorite red hoodie. He didn’t pack anything since he kept a second set of toiletries and plenty of clothes at Malik’s place. Ryou hugged him goodbye.

“I’ll pick up more pumpkins on my way back,” Bakura murmured, hugging Ryou close. That was the thing about him – Bakura never apologized, even when he knew he fucked up. He took action, instead.

Ryou smiled and kissed Bakura’s cheek, just to the side of his scar. He understood as well as Malik did what Bakura wanted to express. “Thank you! I saw some spiderweb designs online I want to try. It might take a few rounds to get it right. I kinda…destroyed the last few we had.”

“Why didn’t you use a _pumpkin patch_ to fix them up?” Bakura grinned viciously.

Ryou groaned and shoved him away. Bakura continued to grin shamelessly.

“We need more fake blood too,” Ryou added.

“No, you don’t,” Malik interjected. He looked at the blood already on the wall and raised an eyebrow.

Ryou stuck his tongue out at him. “Halloween is the best time of year. It’s the only time I can be as weird as I want and people will praise me for it!” he chirped excitedly.

“It’s _September_ ,” Bakura muttered.

“Besides, what else is there to do on Halloween?” Ryou cheerfully questioned, ignoring his other half.

Bakura glanced at Malik. “…Weird sex?”

“Weird sex,” Malik confirmed.

Ryou rolled his eyes.

* * *

 

Malik refused to leave before he was done spraying down his bike’s carriage. It still smelled a bit like pork and Malik was going to be nauseous the whole ride back if he left it like that. It would put him off sex and he couldn’t have that.

Bakura impatiently tapped his foot and touched his wrist where a watch would be if he wore one. Malik ignored him.

Bakura’s arms felt good around Malik’s waist as they made the short trip to Malik’s home. He’d moved to Domino shortly after Bakura returned to life, happy to leave Egypt and the life his sister tried to make for him there. The museum was her place, not Malik’s.

Malik’s was by Bakura’s side.

He found himself without purpose and a great deal of money, and because he spent years shuffling money around and making investments to get profits in return, he used those skills to fund charity projects. Building schools and wells for the poor, keeping rural villages from being overtaken by western influence, sending doctors and educators to people in need…it was all good work Malik could be proud of.

He lived in his apartment building’s penthouse, of course. He’d gone straight, he didn’t up and turn peasant. He kept enough money to make himself and Bakura comfortable, and the rest went back into his charities. He could have rested on his laurels, but he worked because he liked it, and because he needed something to keep his mind occupied. The echo in Malik’s own head was his greatest enemy.

He went to therapy for that. He had a name for what was wrong with him, Dissociative Identity Disorder. There was no cure for what had been done to him, no way to fully heal the fracture in his mind. Giving it a name made it manageable, made it something more real than a voice in his head. He spent more and more time living his own life and far less time disconnecting from it.

After the long elevator ride up to the top floor, Bakura led the way to the bedroom, pulling Malik along by the hand. He tossed his hoodie to the floor on the way. When he fell into bed, he brought Malik with him.

“I believe I owe you some spoiling,” Malik said. He supported his cheek with his palm and looked at Bakura, sprawled out invitingly on the silk sheets. His other hand ran through Bakura’s hair. He’d cropped it short since he never took proper care of it when it was longer. Now, it was easy to keep silky smooth and neat, lovely to touch and just the right length to grip tight and yank his head back in moments of orgasmic bliss.

“What did you have in mind?”

Malik leaned in for a kiss. Bakura received it with passion. He flicked his tongue between Malik’s lips, tasting him playfully. Malik slipped a finger in between their kiss and pushed Bakura back.

“Don’t get ahead of me. I want to,” another kiss, “take my time,” then a third, “with you.”

Malik pushed Bakura into the sheets and straddled him. He slowly pushed his hands up Bakura’s abdomen, stripping him of his shirt. Once it was off, it hit the floor.

“Mmm, look at you,” Malik purred. Bakura grinned and stretched like a cat, letting all his gorgeous muscles roll under Malik’s hands.

Malik molested Bakura’s body, feeling the dips and ridges of his physique, skimming over his numerous scars – each one worn with pride. His tongue followed his hands, then his teeth, nipping at the expanse of skin under his tender mercy.

He sucked on a pert nipple lavishly, rolling his tongue over the sensitive nub. Bakura shuddered and moaned. He gave the same attention to the other and groped Bakura’s hips teasingly. Bakura wiggled out of his pants and, because he never wore underwear, his hard cock curled into his belly.

Malik leaned down, kissed Bakura, and whispered against his lips, “I love you.”

“Love you,” Bakura murmured back.

Though they’d left Ryou’s with the promise of weird sex, his and Bakura’s love life rarely strayed into the unconventional. They were both so fucking hungry for each other, for the affection and intimacy they’d been denied all their lives, their greatest satisfaction was loving the other as wholly and deeply as they could express with their bodies.

Malik wrapped a hand around Bakura’s length. He stroked slowly, smearing pre-cum over the shaft. Bakura quivered and gasped and Malik soaked up every sound he offered. He snapped and snarled all day long, but get him under Malik’s hands and he _purred_.

“Aahh, touch me…” Bakura breathed softly, a whisper he was barely aware of speaking aloud.

Bakura occupied himself with stripping Malik of his clothes. Malik didn’t flinch when the bedroom’s warm air hit his scarred back. He lifted his hips to unbuckle his pants and kick them away. Then came the jewelry.

There was a ritualism to it – removing Malik’s gold. He placed so much weight on his appearance - if he couldn’t be a God, he could damn well look like one. The glitter of his beauty and his wealth worn upon his skin deceived unknowing onlookers into thinking of him the way he wanted them to.

Bakura wasn’t fooled. He knew everything about Malik, knew him deeper than his rich, tan skin and jeweled cuffs and sculpted body. He knew Malik down to his grimy depths and intensely loved all of him.

The gold was moved aside to the bedside table. Before curling back in, Malik opened a drawer and removed a tube of lubricant. He tossed it onto the sheets so it would be in reach when it was needed.

Malik spread Bakura’s beautifully thick and muscled thighs. He kissed the quivering skin of his legs and bit lovingly into his flesh. He sucked until he knew the dark skin would show hickeys come tomorrow.

“Malik…hey,” Bakura drew his attention. Malik looked up and saw the shit-eating grin splitting Bakura’s face open and he knew he’d regret letting Bakura talk. “What’s long and hard and has cum in it?”

“This?” Malik shifted so he could grind his dick into Bakura’s. Bakura was caught between a mischievous laugh and a moan. Malik hoped it would keep him from finishing the joke, but no dice.

“A cucumber!” he cackled merrily. Malik bit Bakura’s neck, hard, to punish him. It didn’t work since he just enjoyed it and moaned gloriously.

“What do you and police cars have in common?” Malik asked between his biting. He pressed his cock to Bakura’s and wrapped a hand around them both, stroking slowly.

Bakura scrunched up his face in thought, taking the riddle far more seriously than Malik did, and Malik just about melted. He was so fucking _cute_.

“Both of you make a lot of noise when you’re coming.”

Bakura laughed loud, boisterous laughs that made his chest heave. He moaned and laughed himself breathless and Malik loved him so much in that moment, he ached with it.

Malik teased Bakura’s entrance with a finger, making Bakura squirm and press down on it. His need for pleasure overtook his amusement and his laughter gave in to keening. Malik found the lube with his other hand and smeared a generous amount on his probing finger. He pressed in slowly. Bakura moaned and clenched around him before relaxing and letting Malik in.

“Fuck…” Bakura sighed.

“Barely a finger and you’re already about to cum, huh?” Malik teased. He added a second finger and scissored Bakura open. Bakura, true to form, groaned with need. “I don’t know anyone who loves to be fucked as much as you.”

Bakura had nothing to say to that. He was feeling too good to think of a comeback, rather proving Malik’s point.

“I said I was gonna spoil you, yeah?” Malik murmured. He slathered more lube onto his hand and slipped a third finger into Bakura. It was more prep than they needed. Bakura took cock like he was made for it. But that wasn’t what was on Malik’s mind. Tonight, he wanted to unravel Bakura and watch it unfold before his eyes.

“Oh fuck, ooohhh…yes, fucking stuff me.” Bakura realized Malik’s intentions when the fourth finger pushed in. His thumb went in soon after and Malik made a fist inside of Bakura. He was a sensual sprawl on the bed, his legs parted wide and his arms resting next to his head. He turned his face into the pillow and his scarred profile, his parted lips, his fluttering eyes were _beautiful_.

Malik moved slowly, pulling and pushing in small movements. The slightest shift was enough to draw delicious noises from Bakura’s lips. He added more lube to his hand and pushed back in. He pleasured himself with his free hand, reveling in the sight and sound of his lover in rapture.

“Malik, I…Malik, Malik…”

Bakura spoke his name like a prayer. He was lost to the pleasure, entirely exposed and vulnerable, his body Malik’s to command. It did Malik’s ego wonders to know he was the only one who’d ever seen this, who would ever see this, would ever know how exquisitely beautiful the Thief King in ecstasy was.

“Cum for me, _habibi_. Cum on my hand.”

Bakura obeyed, staining himself and Malik and the sheets with his seed. He screamed wordlessly, his back arching off the bed and pressing into Malik’s fist. He drew out every bit of pleasure he could, fucking himself hard on Malik’s hand. Then, he collapsed and mouthed Malik’s name through soundless lips.

Malik carefully pulled out, then leaned over Bakura so he could stroke himself to completion and add his mess to the smear on Bakura’s pretty, dark skin. He moaned Bakura’s name before collapsing next to him in a boneless heap.

“So fucking good, Malik…” Bakura said through his panting for breath.

“You’re beautiful,” Malik murmured back. “Your name must be Pepsi because you’re so-da-licious.”

Bakura laughed raucously. The pure joy on his face was almost too much for Malik’s heart.

They showered after a few more terrible jokes shot back and forth. Bakura rubbed the ache in Malik’s back away, aided by the hot water, then they fell back into bed, naked and warm.

Malik spooned Bakura from behind and waited for his breaths to even out. He wanted to look at Bakura’s peaceful, sleeping face for a little while before falling asleep himself. When it didn’t happen, Malik called Bakura’s attention with a light finger brushing his neck.

“What’s on your mind, _habibi_?”

Bakura sighed at the pet name. A sweet, little smile flickered on his face before fading away.

“Things are…really good.”

Malik waited for Bakura to find the words to explain. He stroked his bare shoulder and curled up close into his back. He kissed Bakura’s cheek encouragingly.

“Ryou and I are working on a project we both love. It’s stressful sometimes, but it feels amazing to have this goal together. And I don’t want to kill anyone to get it.”

Malik laughed. Bakura rolled his back muscles into Malik’s chest to feel the laughter flowing through him.

“And I have you. You are…” Bakura turned around in Malik’s embrace. He touched Malik’s cheek and locked eyes with him. The intensity of Bakura’s gaze made Malik tremble. _Gods, I am so in love him_. _I love him so damn much_.

“You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” Bakura said softly. “Which makes me think I’m going to lose you. And Ryou. And everything. Good things don’t happen to me, Malik. I don’t get to keep anything good that comes my way.”

Malik’s heart constricted. The depth of Bakura’s pain was felt in Malik’s soul as deeply as it was embedded into Bakura. He wanted to pry it out of his lover and give them both relief. He wanted to replace it with all the love Malik had for him.

“Maybe that’s because you don’t hold on to the things you have, _habibi_ ,” Malik said gently. He ran his hands through Bakura’s hair and kissed him. “You won’t keep anything if you expect to lose it. You can’t fight for things you think you’ll lose anyway.”

“Are you saying I’m not a fighter?” Bakura snorted derisively. Malik kissed him again to draw his attention to the here and now. He wouldn’t let Bakura escape the conversation by blowing it off.

“Not at all. I think you fight for the wrong reasons. You always fought to make the world hurt like you hurt. You didn’t fight to keep things, you fought to destroy what other people have.”

Malik was born with nearly nothing and he fought with all his strength to keep what little he had; his siblings, his pride. He fought to get the things he wanted. His childhood dream of riding a motorcycle with the wind in his hair. His freedom. The power to keep his freedom.

Bakura was different, and his way of doing things had only brought him more pain. He needed to see that.

“I don’t know how.” Bakura’s voice was hoarse from withheld tears, Malik could see them in his stormy grey eyes. “I don’t know how to _have_ anything. I don’t know how to keep anything. Especially when it feels like the gods don’t want me to.”

“Worship me, then.” Malik kissed Bakura hard and slow, making him feel the press of his lips and the press of his body. “Fuck the Gods that hurt you and took from you. Worship _me_ and I’ll give you the whole world.”

“You arrogant ass,” Bakura laughed weakly and smiled beautifully. “You just want me on my knees.”

“Yup,” Malik admitted easily. “And on your back. And against the wall. And by my side.”

Bakura choked. His tears fell, though they weren’t sorrowful anymore. Malik transformed his grief into joy, as any loving god would.

“Come here.” Bakura rolled his hips into Malik’s significantly. “I’m feeling very _worshipful_ right now.”

Bakura cried again when Malik slipped inside him. He wasn’t sad, though. He was so happy he could do nothing but cry.

* * *

 

Ryou greeted him cheerfully when he returned home. He took off his hoodie, wrinkled from the time it spent on Malik’s floor, and hung it up. His roommate skipped into the living room and looked at Bakura expectantly. His cheerful grin fell into a look of puzzlement.

“Where are the pumpkins?”

“What pumpkins?” Bakura returned Ryou’s confused look.

Ryou sighed in exasperation. “Did Malik fuck your brains out? Get your hoodie back on, you’re making it up to me by carrying all the groceries.”

Bakura groaned and did as he was told. Walking around with a sore ass was going to seriously suck. He really couldn’t think of to what Ryou was referring, but he had been rather occupied last night. It must have slipped his mind.


	2. dark

The drive-in movie theater was starting to fill up with cars when Bakura and Ryou arrived. The movie marathon wouldn’t get started for another hour and Ryou was glad they thought to leave early. He wanted a good view of the screen.

Bakura parked Ryou’s car close to the middle of the lot. They got out and Bakura gathered their supplies from the backseat.

The blanket was spread out over the hood of the car, their backs were comfortably leaning on the windshield, padded by a pile of pillows. Their view of the projector screen was perfect.

“Don’t get comfortable. You lost the bet, you’re on snack duty,” Ryou reminded Bakura with a saccharine smile.

Bakura groaned at the reminder. He should have known better than to bet against the DM over seducing an NPC. Little shit probably upped the NPC’s stats just before Bakura made his roll. But he’d been in a bad mood, because the friendship squad was playing with them and he still hated those fuckers, so he drank. And when he drank, he made stupid bets.

Malik had been there, too, despite feeling the same about Yugi and the others. That made it better. Once the squad left, they’d bitched for an hour about them, then passed out on the living room floor. So the night wasn’t a total loss.

He wished Malik was here now, but night had fallen and the lamps keeping the parking lot bright would dim to keep their glare off the screen.

Bakura pulled himself up and hopped off the hood.

“Popcorn, please. Don’t forget to-”

“Layer the butter, I know,” Bakura grumbled and flipped Ryou off for good measure. Ryou grabbed his insulting hand and kissed his knuckles with a loud _smack_ of his lips.

“Thank you!”

The snack stand was crowded by fellow horror movie enthusiasts, here for the six-hour marathon of classic scary movies. They talked and talked and made a din of noise around Bakura that was giving him a headache. He’d been having a lot of those lately, mostly stress headaches from too much work and not enough sleep. This was one of the few nights he and Ryou weren’t working on their game and he wasn’t going to let a headache spoil it.

The line for popcorn shuffled forward quickly enough. He’d make it back to the car with snacks in hand and time to spare.

Bakura blinked. He looked around and saw no familiar faces around him, saw no familiar scenery. He was surrounded by the voices of unfamiliar people. His head was throbbing with pain.

He backed out of the crowd and searched for something, anything to tell him where he was and how he got here. There were people and cars and it smelled like butter and chocolate. The line of people he’d left were waiting in front of a snack bar. He saw the huge screen.

A drive-in theater. A local one. He’d been here before with Ryou. Ryou liked drive-ins, he and Bakura went to them all the time when they shared a body, and Malik hated them because he liked cushy seats better than cars.

Ryou. Was he here? Bakura found his cell in his pocket and searched his contacts for Ryou’s name. He picked up on the second ring.

“What am I doing here?” Bakura asked before Ryou got a word in.

“Seriously, ‘Kura? You’ve been so forgetful lately, I’m starting think Malik is _actually_ fucking your brains out.”

“Ryou, I don’t…Where are you? I don’t know what’s going on.”

“Bakura, are you alright? What do you mean?” Ryou’s playful tone vanished. Bakura heard feet hitting the ground through the phone.

“I mean I don’t know where I am or how I got here or what I’m _doing_ here!”

“Okay, I hear you. I hear…the popcorn machine?” Ryou paused. “Are you still at the concession stand?”

“Yes, but I don’t know how I got here! Are you listening to me?”

“Yes, I’m listening, I’m just confused!” Bakura heard the breathlessness in Ryou’s voice and realized he was running. “Just stay there and we’ll figure out what’s going on.”

Ryou stayed on the line, even though all Bakura could hear was his heavy breathing. A few heartbeats later Bakura saw Ryou’s white mane of hair dodging through the crowd and looking this way and that.

“Over here!” he shouted in Ryou’s direction, forgetting he was still holding the phone. Ryou flinched at the volume through his receiver and followed the voice.

Ryou crashed into him. He dropped his phone carelessly to the ground and gripped the sides of Bakura’s face. Bakura allowed the inspection as Ryou searched him for head wounds, using his height advantage to examine every inch of Bakura’s cranium. He must not have found anything, because he refocused his attention on Bakura’s eyes.

“You don’t remember walking over here?” Ryou asked with unmasked worry.

“I was baking croissants and then I was here. How the fuck did I get here?!” Bakura screeched, getting real fucking sick of having no idea what was happening.

“That was…this morning, ‘Kura, that was _hours_ ago.”

“Huh? That’s not…I was just…” Bakura looked around again and took notice of the starry sky above them. It was daylight only a minute ago…

“We’re at the movies, we were gonna see a horror movie marathon?”

“We talked about that. It’s…right now?”

“You don’t remember anything between breakfast and now?” Ryou asked. His hands left Bakura’s face and slid down his arms. Ryou’s touch felt like the only solid thing he could count on. The ground under his feet felt untrustworthy.

“No. I don’t.” Bakura hated how weak his voice sounded, but he knew this feeling. He’d had his memories stolen before and _this_ was what that felt like. Knowing something should be there and finding a blank space. Next came not knowing enough to even realize what was missing.

He couldn’t do this again. He couldn’t lose his memories of his family again, he couldn’t lose Ryou or Malik or Yugi or-

There were other people. Other people he should be listing after Yugi and he couldn’t remember their names even as their faces came to mind. He played Monster World with them last night. The blonde one played a knight and the woman played a black mage and the brunette was an archer and he couldn’t remember their _names_ -

He was on the ground and he couldn’t recall collapsing. Ryou’s arms were around him and he was calling Bakura’s name.

“You…need to cleanse me. If this is Zorc again, you need to get him out!” Bakura shouted. “Don’t…you won’t let him make me forget again, you won’t let him make me into a monster again, you _can’t_.”

“You know I’ll protect you. You always protected me from him, so…I’ll protect you this time.”

* * *

 

“He’s been forgetting things for weeks now,” Ryou quietly explained to Malik. He’d called Malik as soon as the cleansing was done. Bakura succumbed to the heavy painkillers he’d taken for his headache halfway through the spell. Ryou tucked him into bed before Malik arrived, and they now sat in the living room with Bakura slumbering upstairs.

“Little things, like what to pick up at the store and where he left his keys. And he’s been getting headaches. I thought it was stress from making the game, but _this_? Something is really, really wrong with him.”

“Is it Zorc?” Malik asked nervously. When he first met Bakura, he’d been possessed by the evil god and Malik barely noticed. Bakura’s help kept Malik’s siblings alive and he had no reason to help in the first place. It didn’t seem like the actions of a malevolent deity.

Ryou explained it some time ago as Malik bringing out the scraps of humanity Zorc left in Bakura, the best in what was left of Bakura back then. Their shared pain touched one another even when Bakura couldn’t remember the source of that pain.

“No,” Ryou said firmly, “I know what Zorc feels like and this isn’t it. He’s negativity incarnate and he makes a room feel like it’s full of serial killers coming at you with chainsaws. He isn’t subtle.”

Ryou performed a banishment spell for any evil spirits possessing Bakura and felt nothing clinging to him. He went through the whole house casting banishments and burning incense and felt nothing leave their home.

He knew his own skill with magic. He’d know if this was an evil spirit.

“I don’t think this is a possession. Or a curse. Or magical at all.”

“You’re saying…you’re saying he’s sick. Something’s wrong with his brain.”

“Yes,” Ryou confirmed solemnly. “And I don’t have a spell for that.”

* * *

 

Bakura’s identification was forged, courtesy of Malik’s nefarious connections from his days as a crime lord. He had tapped people he never wanted to speak to again to get Bakura everything he needed, and a good thing too, since Bakura almost immediately found himself ravaged by illness. The viruses and bacteria of the ancient world were nothing compared to their evolved forms of the modern day.

Malik and Ryou had feared they’d lose him all over again and the doctors were confounded by a patient with no medical history being so ill so suddenly. Especially a patient with the remains of grievous wounds mapping his skin but no history of them being treated.

He made it through with no lasting damage. They discovered about a dozen allergies and found scented soaps and too much detergent in the wash cycle gave him a nasty rash, but he hadn’t come down with more than a cold since. They thought he was in the clear.

Malik didn’t like being back here, in the same clinic Bakura had been diagnosed with a damn flu and had to be hospitalized for it. He had no good memories of this place. Neither did Bakura, if his tension was anything to go by.

“We might be looking at Alzheimer’s, though it would be unusual for someone your age.”

Malik almost laughed at the doctor accusing Bakura of being _young_. Still, in body he’d barely been sixteen when he’d died. He wasn’t in much of a laughing mood, though. He’d been a wreck since Ryou explained the situation to him.

“We could be looking at a brain tumor. Lyme disease is also possible. A full-body CT scan and blood work will tell us what we’re dealing with.”

All those options sent chills down Malik’s spine. Bakura didn’t blink, which made Malik suspect he didn’t understand the severity of what the doctor was saying.

Still, Malik needed comfort even if Bakura didn’t. He squeezed the hand in his grasp. He saw Ryou do the same on Bakura’s other side.

“I’m going to write you a referral for a hospital with the equipment for a scan. When is a good time to make an appointment?”

“Any time,” Ryou said before Bakura could snap, ‘Never!’ like Ryou knew he would just to be an ass. “We work freelance, any time is good.”

The doctor left to make their appointment. Ryou sighed and rested his head on Bakura’s shoulder.

“You didn’t understand a word of that, did you?” Malik asked.

“Fuck you,” Bakura growled.

* * *

 

Bakura hated hospitals.

He hated being poked and prodded by the doctors. He’d had enough of them when Ryou first dragged him out of the shadows.

Malik came back to him then, when he’d been laid up. He’d flown in from Egypt the moment Ryou told him his old partner was back. He…he had…

The memory ended there. His recall picked up again days later with Malik and Ryou caring for him at home. Malik kissed him for the first time, then. At least that memory wasn’t gone.

Now, he was back, and they were asking him to lie still while they shoved him into what looked like a long, metal coffin. They called it a scanner, attached some acronym to it that slipped out of Bakura’s mind as soon as it was said. It would look at his brain and the doctors would be able to figure out what was wrong with him.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to be scared. This is going to help you,” Ryou promised as Bakura climbed onto the scanner’s bed. “We’ll figure this out and get you better.”

“I’m not scared.” He was, and Ryou knew better than to believe his denial.

Malik helped him lay back. He shifted uncomfortably. He felt exposed, laid out flat and dressed in a flimsy gown. At least it wasn’t Malik going through this. He would never be able to strip down in front of strangers and lie still in the machinery’s tight space. That was a slight comfort, knowing Malik was alright.

He watched Malik as the bed slipped back. He looked at his lover’s sympathetic face until he was out of view. He saw him and Ryou leave the room.

He forced himself to stay still while the scanner clicked and whirled around him. He didn’t fear them as Malik did, but cramped spaces weren’t a friend of Bakura’s. He’d been trapped in the early days of his thieving once or twice, when a careless move triggered a trap and made the stones fall around him. He almost died of dehydration before digging himself out with hands bloodied from clawing at rock.

That wasn’t a good place for his thoughts to go. The doctor’s voice said from a loudspeaker, “You need to stay still, sir. We’re almost done.”

Bakura stilled. If he behaved, he’d be out of here faster. He still indulged in some dark imaginings of strangling the doctor for doing this to him.

The bed jerked and slid out of the metal tomb. Malik was there to receive him. Wordlessly, he pulled Bakura into his arms and Bakura didn’t protest. Ryou touched his back, stroked his spine, and murmured something Bakura didn’t really hear.

They were led back to Bakura’s temporary room. He was told he could change back into his clothes, and he did so hastily. He felt better immediately after wrapping himself up in his favorite hoodie. It was less comforting to remember the doctor’s confused look while he stared at Bakura’s brain picture. And the way he scuttled off for a second opinion.

“I’m sure it’s fine. Maybe they saw Monster World dioramas ingrained into your head,” Ryou joked. He tried to laugh and failed.

Bakura should have found it funny. He liked stupid shit like that and Ryou was really trying. A better friend would have mustered up a chuckle.

He sat on the bed, heard the cheap standard-issue sheets crinkle unpleasantly under him. Ryou and Malik sat on either side of him and he hated how much he needed their warmth. He wanted to itch under the bandage where they’d drawn blood from him. Ryou had already smacked his hand away twice for it, though, and he didn’t want to make it a hat trick.

His head ached. His stomach ached. His back ached. He hadn’t gotten away with hiding the extent of his symptoms from Ryou like he thought he had. Ryou noticed all the painkillers he’d been taking, noticed he was early to bed and late to rise.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Malik asked in an echo of Bakura’s thoughts. “How could you be so fucking stupid to not say anything when you started getting sick?”

So Ryou tattled on him. Wonderful.

“We’ve done this before,” Ryou added. “You don’t have the immune system to fight off disease, you _know_ that. So why?”

“…The game.”

“The… _what_?” Ryou gasped. Guilt was already seeping into his expression. Bakura hurried to explain himself.

“The game. If I got sick, we’d start missing deadlines and the publisher might drop us, so I just…ignored it and kept working.” Bakura paused, looked down at his lap. “It’s important to me, too.”

“Oh, _Bakura_.” Ryou’s voice was so full of exasperated affection, Bakura wanted to weep. Instead he shifted uncomfortably and avoided eye contact.

“It’s not as important as you,” Malik quietly added.

“You sound like the friendship squad,” Bakura teased.

“I fucking love you and you know it, so fuck off.”

“Now you sound like me!”

“You still can’t remember their names?” Ryou interrupted.

Bakura shook his head. “I remember them cheering on the sidelines in Battle City. I remember them pissing me off when you invite them over. I just can’t remember their names.”

“We told you their names before we left. You forgot them again?”

“Guess so.” Bakura’s voice cracked.

* * *

 

Malik didn’t know enough about brain chemistry to say this couldn’t be normal, but it seemed so _random_. The information Bakura was losing had no pattern to it. Didn’t that mean something abnormal, dare he say, supernatural was happening?

Or maybe it was wishful thinking. How strange their lives were that normal afflictions were far more worrying than magical ones.

The doctor returned, the same grim look on his face as he had when he went looking for a second opinion. Malik felt his guts clench.

“You don’t have a tumor.” The doctor began hanging Bakura’s scans on a light panel. “We’re still waiting on the results from your blood, but I doubt we’ll see anything there. To be perfectly frank, I don’t know what this is.”

The doctor illuminated the light panel, and even with Malik’s limited medical knowledge, he knew what he was seeing was bad.

The images showed Bakura’s brain and organs. Throughout his body, there were black patches like spilled ink across the image. Bakura stared at them uncomprehendingly, waiting for someone to explain what was happening to him.

“These dark areas are where extensive cell death has occurred. As you can see, cells are dying all over your body. We see something like this in Alzheimer’s, Huntington’s and other neurodegenerative conditions, but not to this extent, not hitting every organ all at once.”

“What does that mean? You don’t know what’s happening to me?” Bakura snapped angrily. Malik felt him shaking and knew his anger was covering up his fear.

“We know your cells are dying and will continue to die unless we find a way to impede your condition’s progress. However, I cannot give a diagnosis at this time. I’ve…never seen anything like this.”

“Am I going to die?” Bakura asked bluntly. Ryou shook his head and wrapped his arms around Bakura. Malik stayed very, very still.

The doctor adopted a sympathetic face and said carefully, “We’re looking at multiple organ failure within six months and total brain death within eight months. We will do everything we can-”

Whatever else the doctor had to say was lost on all three of them. Ryou openly sobbed into Bakura’s shoulder and Malik stared at him like he was trying to memorize him to the last detail. Bakura stared forward, not seeing or hearing any of it.

All he could see was the void stretching out in front of him and all he could hear was the ringing in his ears.

“I’ll prepare a room for an overnight stay. There’s more tests we can do. We’ll find a diagnosis.”

The doctor left them. The stunned silence persisted. Bakura broke it.

“I don’t want to die,” he said quietly. Ryou shook his head again. Malik looked at Bakura and Bakura looked back. His eyes were wide and scared and helpless.

“I want to see my family again, but not until I spend a life with you. Not until we can go to the fields together.”


	3. and deep,

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Go give MidKnight some love for the gorgeous art featured in this chapter!
> 
> http://mid-k-night.tumblr.com/post/179941384422/art-for-if-i-forget-everything-else

“Got any jacks?”

“Go fish.”

Bakura growled and pulled a card from the deck. He stuck it into his hand hard enough to make it bend. Malik grinned smugly asked, “Got any twos?”

“Fuck you and your fucking card counting!” Bakura flicked the card he just pulled at Malik. It hit his forehead, which did nothing to wipe the smile off his face. “How does that even work with Go Fish?”

Go Fish was one of the few games Bakura still remembered how to play. He’d forgotten Duel Monsters, only holding on to the basic concept and not the rules of play. He forgot every dice game he knew and when Ryou tried to explain the rules to him, they left his mind as soon as they were spoken.

Malik won the game, and Bakura remembered what they were playing all the way through, which was becoming rarer every day.

October arrived and with it, a decline in Bakura’s condition. He hadn’t left the hospital since the day the doctor told him he was dying, and what was supposed to be a few overnight observations turned into a more permanent stay. At least he had a nicer room, now.

The sixth month clock ticking away over Bakura’s head was reduced by half when his kidneys failed and he began dialysis to keep him alive. It was reduced by half again when his liver degraded. He was put on the transplant list but had no chance of receiving a donor liver when he was still dying of an undiagnosed condition. All the doctors could do was tell him which organ would go next, since they were tracking the path of destruction being cut through his body. His lungs were next on the hit list. Then his brain.

No drug regimen made a dent in the speed his organs shut down. The rate increased instead as time passed. There was still no diagnosis. And no cure.

Ryou threw away all his Halloween decorations. There was nothing to celebrate this month and never would be again.

As Malik put away the cards, Bakura said, “You’ll read to me today, right?”

“Yeah, if you want.”

Malik sat at Bakura’s bedside and picked up the journal always present on his bedside table. He flipped it open to a random page, then flicked through until he found what he wanted.

 

“How about your parents?” he asked.

“Yeah, sounds good.” Bakura leaned back and shut his eyes. He folded his hands over his abdomen comfortably. He looked a little too much like a corpse in a coffin, so Malik looked away and began to read.

“Mother was beautiful. She had hair like mine and magic like Ryou’s. She cast spells to keep the well water clean and purify the food the village men found in tombs. She never got mad but had the _worst_ disappointed face in the world. The only time she got mad at me was the first time I brought a snake home and didn’t tell her. She found it under my bed and screamed at me because it was poisonous and could have killed me. I hugged the snake and said it was my friend, and the snake was docile around me.

“She said she sensed a connection between it and me. And between me and every other snake I brought home. I should try that again, see if I’m still connected.” Malik laughed. “I’d pay to see that.”

Bakura laughed too. “I should have tried it. Could have made a career as a snake charmer.”

The career Bakura tried to build with Ryou was buried somewhere in the depths of Ryou’s apartment. He couldn’t bring himself to destroy the unfinished game board, but he couldn’t stand looking at it either.

Malik continued reading. “Father was always laughing. He drove mother crazy with his stupid jokes. I think I get my sense of humor from him. He liked the snakes. It was his idea to start raiding tombs. He and mother argued about it one night, he said he couldn’t take watching me getting skinnier and they had to do something. I remember them eating less so I wouldn’t starve. The only really serious talk I had with him was when he told me he was going out of the village to do something important.”

“I remember that,” Bakura interjected, “that talk. Can’t remember his face, though.”

“I’m sorry,” Malik said softly.

“Tell me about Ryou again.”

Malik swallowed the lump in his throat. “Okay, maybe it’ll stick this time.” Malik found the pages about Ryou, near the start of the journal. He shoved his feelings down and read.

“I shared a body with Ryou for a long time. He got the ring on his sixth birthday. It was the same day his mother and sister died. He was in the car when they were run off the road. They were driving to meet his father for Ryou’s birthday dinner. Amane and his mother died on impact. The car rolled off a hill and nobody found it for four hours. He was trapped with their dead bodies for four hours. We talked for the first time, then. He was scared and I heard it, so I reached out to him. I told him to keep his eyes shut so he didn’t have to see. We talked and he wasn’t as scared.

“We were together for years, then Yugi finished the puzzle and Zorc woke up in the ring. I forgot why I liked him, why I wanted to protect him. I hurt him. He pulled me out of the shadows anyway and he forgave me.”

“Sounds like we had something special.”

“You did. I can’t believe after getting your soul chewed on by Zorc for three thousand years, your first instinct when Ryou held the ring was to comfort a scared kid.”

“I wish I could remember him. And you,” Bakura said quietly. Malik shook his head.

“It’s not your fault. Whether you remember us or not, we’ll be here for you.”

Bakura remembered some things about them. He knew Ryou was his dearest friend and Malik was his lover. He knew he cared about them both. Deeply. He had a few memories still of his time spent with them. Most of it was gone, though.

Ryou didn’t handle it well, the day Bakura looked in Ryou’s eyes and asked who he was. He’d begged Bakura to remember him, but his face was gone and the memories of him went soon after. He still knew Malik’s face, but it was a matter of time before Malik faced the same horror Ryou did that day.

He didn’t visit much anymore. Instead he threw himself into every spellbook he could find, searched for any spell that could save Bakura. The strangeness of Bakura’s affliction convinced him it was magical in nature, despite him being the one to suggest it was mundane in the first place. Perhaps this was his way of coping. Or he simply couldn’t accept losing Bakura.

Ryou had lost his mother and his sister. His father was so distant he may as well have been dead if it weren’t for the rent money deposited in Ryou’s account once a month. He was going to lose his closest friend, too.

He had other friends, Yugi and the rest of his crew, but there was a schism between them that seemed uncrossable. Ryou would never have the same respect for the Pharaoh the others did. The others would never move beyond tolerating Bakura. Malik would always look a bit like a monster to them and the Pharaoh would always be a monster to Malik and Bakura.

Yugi was the only one of them who ever visited.

_“It breaks my heart to see him like this. I’m so sorry, Malik, Ryou.”_

_“Thank you for coming. Even if he didn’t know who you were, I’m sure it meant something to him.”_

Malik doubted the friendship with Yugi would survive Bakura’s loss.

Rishid would have visited if Malik told him what was going on. He couldn’t bring himself to, though. Because telling Rishid meant telling Ishizu. He loved his sister, but the last thing he wanted to hear was how entirely without sympathy she was for the thief as he lay dying. He wouldn’t be able to take it.

Malik helped Ryou in whatever way he could, but their combined efforts were as fruitless as Ryou’s solo venture. Malik wanted to believe they could help Bakura, but every time he lost another memory, Malik’s hope slipped a little further out of his grasp.

Bakura remembered he used to be trapped in the Millennium Ring, but not the specifics of his captivity or how he got there. He remembered Kul Elna, but not its people. He remembered less and less every day. The journal was his attempt to hold on to his memories. He wrote everything he could think of on the second day of his hospitalization. Malik read passages to him and he would keep the memory for a time before it slipped away again. He couldn’t re-learn anything he lost.

“Do you want me to read more?” Malik asked.

“No, there’s something I need to tell you,” Bakura did his best to sit up. “The doctor told me my brain is going to die soon. A few weeks, maybe. And I may go into a coma before then.”

“Yeah, he...he told me the same thing,” Malik murmured hoarsely.

“I signed a paper saying you can make decisions for me when I can’t.” Bakura looked at his hands, fiddling about in his lap. “I want you to pull the plug when the doctor says I’m brain dead. He said the rest of me can stay alive for a while after my brain shuts down. I don’t want that.”

“Why not?” Malik shot to his feet, the diary falling off his lap and onto the ground. Bakura flinched at the sound. “Why would you ask me to do that if there’s still time to-”

“Save me?” Bakura interrupted. “You can’t save me Malik. I’m going to die.”

“No, you aren’t! I have money, I have contacts, I have people looking for a cure!”

“A cure for a disease no one can figure out? Malik, there is no cure.”

“But-”

“This is why I’m asking you to pull the plug!” Bakura’s imitation of a yell was a whispery wheeze, but he still gave it his all. “You would leave me on this hospital bed, dead in all but name, and keep looking for a way to save me. You’ll drive yourself insane, you’ll make yourself sick. I won’t put you through that. I won’t be the reason you destroy yourself.”

“If you remembered-” Malik stuttered and wiped at his face, furious at his tears, “-you wouldn’t say that. You’d keep fighting just to spite the gods.”

“That’s not true. Malik, I’ve forgotten most things. But I do remember one thing, the most important thing, and that is…” Bakura reached up, shaking, and touched Malik’s cheek. Malik steadied him with his own hand, pressing Bakura’s to his face. Bakura tried to wipe away Malik’s tears but didn’t have the strength. “I know I love you. I know it kills me to think about you tearing yourself apart for me. I don’t give a fuck about any gods, I don’t care if they’re killing me or not, and I definitely don’t care enough to spite them at the cost of hurting you.”

Malik sobbed into Bakura’s hand. He would have wept into Bakura’s chest if he wasn’t too weak to take the weight.

“I’ll see you again. I’ll introduce you to my mother and father. If I have any siblings, I’ll introduce you to them too.”

“You do. A sister,” Malik wailed.

“I’ll introduce you to everyone from...from…”

“Kul Elna.”

Malik didn’t know if Bakura’s voice faded because he couldn’t remember the name, or if exhaustion stole it from him. His eyes were drooping with the need for sleep.

“I’ll see you in the fields, Malik.”

Malik stayed by Bakura’s bedside until he fell asleep. He only had the energy for visiting hours. Even less than that sometimes. Malik asked if it was better to let him rest, but was told his and Ryou’s (and occasionally Yugi’s) visits were the only things he had to look forward to. Even if it exhausted him, he would not benefit from its loss.

He kissed Bakura’s forehead, his cheek, his nose, his lips. He lingered close and nuzzled into his hair, crying quietly. Bakura softly sighed in his sleep, like he always did when he was content. Malik stayed until he was made to leave.

He left the journal at Bakura’s bedside, as he always did, but took a moment to flip to the last page. The final words of the book read, _I love Malik. If I forget everything else, I have to remember that. I love Malik._

“I’ll see you in the fields, _habibi_.”

* * *

 

Bakura lapsed into a coma two days later. As with everything else, the doctors could find no reason for it.

Bakura was small in stature, but he never seemed like it. He was broad and strong. He made a spectacle of himself when he wanted to be seen. He screamed to the heavens when he was angry and cried oceans when he despaired. He had a snarky follow up to _everything_. He rarely kept his mouth shut.

Now, he was small and quiet.

The only sound in the hospital room was the machines attempting to keep Bakura alive. His once powerful build was wasted away. His hair was unruly. He laid there, still and sick and silent.

It was wrong. It was _so wrong_.

He’d be brain dead, soon. Malik told him what Bakura requested. Ryou didn’t know what Malik would do - if he’d respect Bakura’s wishes. He doubted it, in the angry, contemptuous part of his mind that was growing stronger as Bakura grew weaker. Malik would keep going until he wore himself down to nothing, and when Bakura died anyway, Malik would break.

Maybe he’d disassociate and never come back. Maybe his despair would coagulate into a new dark personality and he’d destroy the world after all.

Maybe Ryou would help him do it.

When they shared the space in Ryou’s mind, he’d felt Bakura’s endless, seething fury. Beyond that - his chasm of pain, unceasing and boundless. Ryou thought he understood, after his mother and Amane. He hadn’t. Not truly.

Now, he truly did.

Staring at Bakura, Ryou came to an epiphany. It was probably the last vestiges of a desperate mind clinging to sanity and trying to find logic in a senselessly cruel loss.

“I think this is an evil spirit, Malik.”

Malik was hunched over in his chair, crumpled in on himself. He looked up at Ryou with tired eyes. He wasn’t wearing makeup, nor was he adorned in gold or trendy clothing. He stopped trying to fool the world weeks ago. He wore his misery like a heavy coat.

“Stop jerking me around, Ryou,” Malik snapped. “ _You_ said this wasn’t a possession or curse or whatever. Now you’re saying it is? Just…stop.”

“Listen to me,” Ryou insisted. “That’s what I thought too, so I’ve been trying to find magical cures for organ failure and such. But that’s not how magic works. There are magical cures for magical ills, not mundane ones. But there is no mundane cause, the doctors can’t find a reason for any of this. Because they have the wrong skill set.”

Malik was barely listening to him. Ryou got to the point.

“I haven’t been thinking of the cause as magical, I assumed it couldn’t have been. But maybe I missed something.”

“ _Assumed? Maybe?_ Sounds like you still have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“At least I’m _trying_!” Ryou stood and turned on his heel. Before storming out, he turned back and said, “I’m going to try while he’s still with us, not after he’s a vegetable and trying is the only reason to keep living, like you plan on doing!”

Malik definitely wasn’t listening anymore. Bringing up Bakura’s looming death, and Malik’s part Bakura wanted him to play, never failed to make him disassociate. Ryou left him to find his way back on his own.

He returned shortly before visiting hours ended, and he brought a polaroid camera with him. Malik had returned to reality by then.

Malik eyed the camera doubtfully. “Are we going to see some dust in the air and call it a ghost?”

Ryou and Bakura liked to watch lame ghost hunting shows and make fun of them. The memory hurt.

“Spirit photography is a tried and true method of seeing spirits,” Ryou defended. “I took pictures of him when he was possessing me. It’s worth trying.”

They’d almost submitted the pictures of Bakura’s wavering blur of a ghost to one of the shows they made fun of. Bakura loved the idea of becoming a spooky story to tell in the dark. They never did, though. Sending mail to the states was _really_ expensive.

Ryou stood at the foot of Bakura’s bed and snapped the camera shutter. The camera whirred and clicked, then spit out the polaroid. Malik felt sweat trickle down his face as Ryou shook the picture. His back ached from the tension in his muscles he just couldn’t manage to release. It had been a long time since he had one of Bakura’s massages.

When Ryou’s hand stilled, he hesitated a moment before turning the picture his way. His face twisted into a gruesome look of despair and horror. Malik’s heart sank.

“What? What is it?”

Ryou silently handed the picture over. He shook his head, squeezed his eyes shut. Fuck, it _had_ to be awful. Ryou didn’t flinch from anything.

Malik took the picture and before he could think too much and stop himself from looking, he flipped it over.

Something was draped over Bakura’s wasted form. Upon one shoulder rested a hand – one too pale and with fingernails far too long to be called human. The arm faded into nothing, or rather, faded into something the camera couldn’t capture on film. The creature’s other hand was on Bakura’s other side, but it did not lay idle on his shoulder.

No, the other hand’s index finger was pressed to Bakura’s temple. Its long nail embedded deep into Bakura’s skull.

Curiously, Malik went to Bakura’s side and touched his shoulder. He laid his hands where a ghostly figure touched him. He felt nothing but Bakura’s skin and the folds of his hospital gown.

“What is that thing?” Malik asked. He looked over Bakura’s head, where something they couldn’t perceive floated and sucked the life out of Bakura.

“I don’t know,” Ryou admitted. “Why can’t I sense it? Why…why…?” Ryou’s words sputtered out as he stared. “…Evil spirits. _Evil_ spirits!”

“Huh?” Malik dazedly asked, still staring at the invisible monster killing the man he loved.

“Everything I’ve done, everything I’ve tried has been to banish _evil_ spirits!” Ryou was thrilled. He felt more alive than he had since that day a month ago when Bakura called him, panicking over his lost memory.

“You’re saying this _isn’t_ an evil spirit? Seriously? It’s killing him!” Malik gestured wildly to Bakura’s unconscious form.

“Spirits don’t understand good and evil like people do, Malik. They might do harm without realizing they are. They might think they’re helping while hurting someone.”

“Fine, so it’s a confused spirit. What is it and how do we kick its ass?”

* * *

 

They went to Ryou’s apartment when visiting hours ended. Malik felt invigorated. The will to exist that Bakura’s hospitalization sapped from him had returned along with his hope for saving him. He knew they’d wasted a lot of time chasing the wrong assumptions. He knew they had to work fast or their new course would lead nowhere. But they had genuine hope again.

“He started forgetting things the day he went home with you, right? He forgot to pick up pumpkins for me. He made a stupid pun about it and he was doing it to apologize to me, so he wouldn’t normally forget.”

“And what did he do that day that just might have gotten him possessed?” Malik asked leadingly. Ryou put the pieces together as quickly as Malik did.

“The game!” he exclaimed. “He put summoning runes all over that river! And what he brought over was a benevolent spirit, not an evil one, which is why I couldn’t banish it!”

Ryou rushed off to retrieve the game board from the back of the closet he stored it in. He knocked aside the figurines and carefully shifted Bakura’s concept art until he unburied the game board, leaning on its side against the wall.

He laid it on the floor and crouched down to closely examine the river and its arcane symbols.

“You just need a different banishing spell, right?”

“Not exactly,” Ryou replied. “He called the spirit, even if it was an accident. It’s going to stay until its work is done or Bakura tells it to go away.”

“Bakura is in a coma,” Malik reminded. “He can’t tell it to go away.”

“So we convince it its work is done. We just need to figure out what it _is_. Damnit, ‘Kura, why couldn’t you have made this easy?"

Malik recalled that Bakura pulled symbols from all over Ryou’s spellbook. “Hang on. These are random symbols, right? How could he call anything like this? I’ve seen you cast spells, you’re so meticulous about everything.”

“ _I’m_ meticulous. I didn’t cast this, though, Bakura did. He makes magic happen by instinct, not careful spell crafting. Random symbols and his will might be enough-because it’s Halloween!” Ryou interrupted himself with a sudden exclamation. “It’s _Halloween_. Spirits crowd around the world of living this time of year. And his condition got worse the closer it gets to the end of the month. The spirit is getting stronger the closer to Halloween it gets!”

“He accidentally invoked a spirit because it was already close by and because his magic works off of instinct,” Malik summarized. Ryou nodded.

“He didn’t cast a summoning spell. It wasn’t the symbols themselves that brought the spirit in…” Ryou muttered to himself.

“The river, then? He was pissed off about repainting the river.”

“Yes! He was angry about the river! He focused his attention on the river and his wild magic and the random symbols plus the time of year was enough to summon a spirit. The river was his focus, so it has to be a river spirit!”

Ryou jumped up and rushed to the upper floor. He scurried back down with a pile of books in hand. He dumped them on the ground between him and Malik and sat cross legged. He took the top tome and gestured for Malik to do the same.

“Look for anything about a river spirit that induces amnesia and sickness. We don’t have any time left, Malik. Nobody else can save Bakura. We have to do this.”

Malik nodded. He didn’t need to be told twice.

They read long into the night. When exhaustion made Malik’s eyelids sag, he saw Bakura’s wasted form and forced them open again. He wouldn’t stop, not until they had an answer.

As the sun came over the horizon, they found one.

“A Lethe. It’s a Lethe.”


	4. But I have promises to keep,

“A Lethe? What is that?” Ryou asked. He set his book down and scooted to Malik’s side so he could read over his shoulder.

The illustration accompanying the spirit’s description sent chills through Ryou’s body. It showed a long-haired, feminine form rising out from a river’s murky depths, her long fingers and longer nails scraping at the shore to pull herself up.

“A spirit of forgetfulness and oblivion. Its purpose is to grant a peaceful death by wiping away all memory as the possessed person dies. Usually, she kills her victims quickly, but since she was summoned by a random convergence of circumstance, she doesn’t have a solid grip on Bakura. She’s called by those haunted with painful memories. Bakura certainly qualifies.”

“He does,” Ryou grimly agreed. Bakura had suffered so much, so deeply. He and Malik reintroduced him to joy, yet the pain would never entirely fade. “But he doesn’t want to forget his pain.”

“That doesn’t seem to matter. The Lethe thinks it’s doing him a favor whether he likes it or not.” Malik passed the book over so Ryou could read it for himself. He nodded and murmured to himself as he skimmed through the passage.

“You’re the occult expert. How do we get her to leave our thief alone?”

“Convincing her the job is done isn’t going to work. Her job isn’t done until Bakura is dead. We need to tell her she’s not wanted in the first place. That all of this was a mistake.”

“We can’t even see her. How do we talk to her?”

“She doesn’t fully enter our world.” Ryou pointed out the related passage in the book. “That’s why we can only see her arms. The rest of her is in her own realm.”

“Like how Zorc was mostly in the Shadow Realm, but a part of him was in the ring?”

“Exactly. So we either make her come to us, or we go to her.”

“If we bring more of her here, her hold on Bakura gets stronger.” Malik frowned. “He’s already close to death and it’s only taking this long to kill him because her hold on him is weak. We can’t empower her, we can’t risk Bakura like that.”

“Right,” Ryou agreed. “We take the risk, then. We go to her.”

They had no time to waste. The clock was ticking, and though the Lethe would be at her strongest on Halloween, in two weeks’ time, they couldn’t count on Bakura living that long. They needed to act now.

Ryou gathered his spellcasting supplies; white candles for protection, chalk to draw the lines of the spell, ingredients for a potion to induce a trance and send a soul out of its body.

“We need a link to guide us where we want to go, or else the soul we send will be lost in the spirit realm,” Ryou explained.

“The game board? It’s what summoned the Lethe.”

“No, the summoning was a messy accident. The Lethe’s ties to the summoning are tenuous, it won’t carry us through. We need a link to Bakura. He’s the link between our world and Lethe. We need to connect to that pathway and ride it through him into the Lethe’s dimension.”

Ryou finished arranging the candles in a circle, and kneeled to begin drawing a reverse summoning circle, intended to send something away instead of drawing something in.

“We’ve both touched his soul. You especially. Can you connect with him using the bond you formed when you shared a body?”

“I don’t want to count on that,” Ryou said, sketching feverishly on the floor. “The ring is what let him possess me. It was dark, evil magic that bonded us, and there was another passenger along for the ride. And that bond is years in the past. I won’t count on the magic of it remaining strong enough to do what we need it to.”

“Something more recent that ties us to Bakura…” Malik crumpled his brow in thought, then snapped his fingers triumphantly. “The journal.”

Ryou paused, looked up. He looked thoughtful for a moment and smiled. “That could work. He poured his heart into that journal, he recorded everything he wanted to remember. His treasured memories of us are in there. Yes, it _will_ work!”

“I’ll get it. I’ll break into the hospital if I have to.”

Malik didn’t have to break into the hospital. A kind nurse led him to Bakura’s room after he told the front desk he’d forgotten something in there. He probably confused the poor woman when he raised his middle finger at the wall above Bakura’s head before leaving with the journal.

By the time he got back to Ryou’s apartment, the reverse summoning circle was complete. Ryou was lighting candles as Malik walked in the door.

“We’re ready,” Ryou informed. “One of us needs to perform the spell and the other faces the Lethe.”

Malik contemplated the journal in his hands. He could easily recite it from memory. He knew this connection to Bakura was connected to him just as deeply.

_I love Malik. If I forget everything else, I have to remember that. I love Malik._

“I’m going. It has to be me.”

Ryou looked at him solemnly. He didn’t argue, so he knew it to be true as surely as Malik did.

“This is going to hurt, Malik. A lot. A human soul isn’t meant to be among inhuman spirits. They won’t want you there.”

“He wouldn’t give any less, so I won’t either.”

Ryou smiled. He unfolded his hand towards the magic circle in a welcoming gesture. Malik took the invitation. He laid down in the center and wrapped his arms tightly around the journal.

Ryou didn’t offer any words of advice or comfort, no well wishes for the trip he was about to embark on. He simply began to chant in a language Malik didn’t understand a word of.

The sensation began as a tingling in his fingertips, which spread throughout his body. Then, numbness crashed through him like a tidal wave, followed quickly by an assault of pins and needles. Then, he was blind and in pain.

He screamed on instinct. The darkness he feared more than anything was all he knew, and for a moment, he was sure it was all he would ever know again. He was beaten from every side by a thousand angry, unseen hands, all trying to push him back as the spell forced him forward. It made him forget, for a moment that felt like an eternity, that there was something he feared far more than the dark. Bakura. Bakura dying. He was going to die if Malik didn’t pull himself together.

He felt a knife edged by fire digging into his back. He was entirely convinced that if he could see, he would see his father slashing at him. Not in carefully carved strokes but in hateful, wild cuts. Hurting him the way he wanted to, not in the way duty bid him to.

Bakura was going to die. Bakura was going to _die_.

_I love Bakura. If I forget everything else, I have to remember that. I love Bakura._

He wasn’t screaming when he felt solid ground and soft grass under him. He wasn’t sappy enough to call it the power of love, but when he focused his thoughts on Bakura, the pain lessened. Or maybe it gave him a reason to endure.

Either way, he wasn’t blind anymore.

The world was awash in sepia. The grass, the trees, the sky, all of it was washed out in browns and tans. Like an old photograph, the color of a distant memory.

Malik stood up, the journal still clutched in his arms. He looked around and found his quarry.

She sat at a river on the bank opposite of Malik. Her head was tilted down and her inky black hair was long enough to obscure her face. She was draped in white linens that moved with no wind and as Malik drew closer, he realized it was the flow of the river making her clothes ruffle.

It was the only thing with proper color. The intense blue of the water stood out boldly against the faded colors of the rest of this world. Within its depths, Malik could see a wavering image of Bakura, lying in his hospital bed. The Lethe’s hands were plunged beneath the surface of the water, reaching out to Bakura and draining him of memory and life.

He drew himself up. He should have painted on kohl and worn his jewelry for this, and with that thought, he felt the weight of gold about his wrists and neck. He looked at his jewelry and realized he thought his desired appearance into existence.

Bakura said he looked like a god like this, and he needed to be a god right now. Bakura’s god, protecting him like he’d promised to.

“You need to leave him,” he commanded.

The Lethe looked up. She was _beautiful_. Her face was human yet far too perfect to be believed. Pale white skin, high cheekbones, and terribly sad eyes - all flawless as if painted by a master artist. She looked to be on the verge of tears and something jerked in Malik’s chest, compelling him to comfort her.

The compulsion did not sway him. She was killing his lover.

Her eyes cast downwards at the river. The water flickered. An image passed over its waves, one Malik had never seen but was terribly familiar with. A village burning, its people slaughtered in the streets and others boiled to death in molten gold. A small, scared child watching it all happen.

The image faded and became water again. Malik wiped the tears from his eyes.

“He hurts.” The Lethe’s voice was gentle. Somehow, it reminded him of a mother he never knew. She cared. She loved Bakura, Malik realized. She truly wasn’t an evil spirit. This place was too beautiful, too peaceful, to be the home of something evil. Malik could feel her love seeping through his skin. Though the form her love took was terrible, it didn’t make it less genuine.

“He does. He hurts so much, I don’t think he’ll ever stop.” Malik agreed. “Not completely. But don’t you see he rejoices, too?”

The Lethe removed a hand from the water, the one not dug into Bakura’s skull, and touched Malik’s forehead with her nail. Her reach shouldn’t have been long enough to stretch across the river, but space didn’t hold its shape here and Malik didn’t try to wrap his head around it. Her touch didn’t hurt like he expected it to.

“You hurt him,” Malik pointed out. “This doesn’t hurt, so why was he in pain?”

The Lethe did not speak. Instead, Malik understood without words what the Lethe wished to communicate. The process of drawing memories out was not meant to be protracted. But the Lethe could not speed the process because of her weak connection to Bakura. She could not leave either, because the pain Bakura suffered was too profound and far overshadowed the pain the Lethe caused him.

He could feel the Lethe searching his memories. Not taking, simply looking. The beautiful, sorrowful face looked upon him with pity.

“You hurt.”

Malik took the Lethe’s hand and pushed it away. She withdrew without resistance. He didn’t want her ‘help,’ didn’t ask for it like she believed Bakura did.

“Yes, it hurts. I can’t stand celebrating my own birthday because all my worst memories happened on that day. The dark still terrifies me. I disassociate and when I come back, I wonder if I made a new me that’s going to hurt the people I love. Sometimes my back hurts so much, I can feel myself being cut open again and knowing it’s all in my head doesn’t make it better. And sometimes it’s just the nerve damage where the knife cut too deep.”

“You don’t have to hurt anymore.” The Lethe reached out and Malik took a step back.

“I already tried to bury all my pain. I locked it all away until that black pit inside me became another me. And _that_ me was so angry and hurt so much, he… _I_ wanted to destroy everything. Then I was all alone in my head and all that hatred and pain was mine. I never, _never_ want to bury it again. Because burying it stuck me in the same place for years. Once I let myself feel it, I used it to drive myself forward. It’s my reason for all the charity work I fund. So other kids don’t have to know pain like I do. My pain gave me purpose.”

The Lethe withdrew. Her ever-sorrowful face was unchanged.

“Bakura is in pain, every day, but it’s his reason for wanting to live a good life. To live the life the gods tried to deny him. Being alive and happy is in defiance of all he suffered. It’s his perfect revenge. Yeah, sometimes that happiness scares the hell out of him, because no one’s ever tried to protect his feelings. All he needs is time. He just needs a _chance_ to get used to it and realize _I_ am going to protect his happiness. You’re not helping him by taking away his pain. You’re taking away his chance to find something better.”

The Lethe was crying, now. She looked at her hand still plunged in the water, still attached to Bakura and draining him.

“And most of all…most of all our pain brought us together. We knew the same hurt, knew the indignity of being abused by an authority we were supposed to respect on little more than principle. He understood me before he even knew why. We understand each other because we hurt in the same way. We built on that pain and made something together, something beautiful. Our pain didn’t just give us purpose, it gave us each other, and there’s nothing that could bring more happiness into our lives than _each other_.”

The river changed again. Bakura and Malik eating dinner together and Bakura complaining about Malik’s vegan cooking and eating it all anyway. Malik seeing snow for the first time and building a crooked snowman with Bakura. Malik watching Bakura paint and not being allowed to see the painting, tickling Bakura until he let it go, and seeing the painting was of Malik sitting in the sunlight.

Malik and Bakura making love and laughing at terrible jokes.

“We need our pain, Lethe. We need to hurt. It makes us kinder. It makes us love deeper. It makes us better.”


	5. And miles to go before I sleep.

Malik wheeled Bakura into the penthouse, Ryou close on his heels carrying as much of Bakura’s things as he could carry. They decided it was best for Bakura to stay with Malik while he recovered. Malik’s bedroom had the space for his medical equipment.

“Home sweet home,” Bakura murmured. Malik smiled and ducked down to kiss his cheek.

The doctors were as baffled by Bakura’s recovery as they were by his illness. Suddenly, without any observable reason, his dead organs began to revive, his cells began to regrow, and his memory returned without a single thing missing.

_“Ryou, remember when we marathoned the Friday the 13 th movies and you said you’d never forgive me for saying Jason Takes Manhattan was my favorite?”_

_“Bakura…oh, yes! I remember that!_ You _remember that!”_

_“I lied. The original’s my favorite, but it’s your favorite too, and I didn’t want you to make a sappy thing out of it.”_

_“Everything is gonna be sappy from here on out, you jerk, I promise.”_

_“Ugh, I shouldn’t have said anything.”_

He still had a long recovery ahead of him. His body was exhausting itself regenerating his lost tissues. He slept more than he managed to stay awake and could barely move his emaciated muscles. He would need physical therapy in the months to come and was on a liquid diet (which _really_ pissed him off, he almost died, he deserved a fucking steak).

And he was alive. Blessedly _alive_.

Ryou deposited Bakura’s things in the foyer and left to retrieve the rest from the car. He didn’t leave without hugging Bakura for a long, long time. He’d be practically moving in as well, Malik expected. His company was welcome. For what little time Bakura managed to stay conscious, he spent most of it very, very angry. He hated being so weak. Ryou calmed him with his presence alone while Malik tended to exacerbate Bakura’s moods, good or bad.

“Happy to be home?” Malik asked, pushing the wheelchair towards the bedroom.

“ _Yes_ ,” Bakura said, shamelessly honest.

Malik pulled the wheelchair in next to the bed and lifted Bakura from it. His muscles were withered and he was left small and fragile for it, making him easy to pick up. Bakura didn’t grumble, though, too tired from the drive home to work up a proper fuss.

He leaned into Malik’s touch and didn’t let him leave when he was settled into the bed that would be his home for quite some time.

Malik sat on the edge of the bed and curled into Bakura’s lap. Fingers stroked his hair in small, weak movements.

“Thank you,” Bakura said, “for saving me.”

“Thank _you_ for staying alive. I couldn’t-I wouldn’t-”

“Yes, you would,” Bakura interrupted. “That’s what you do. You keep going no matter how much it hurts. It’s why I love you. One of the reasons. There’s a lot of them.”

Malik sat up and leaned into Bakura’s chest. He kissed his lips luxuriously, reminding himself of how fucking good it felt to enjoy the taste and touch of his lover. He would spend the rest of his life, then spend an eternity in the fields, adoring Bakura and never, _never_ stop loving him.

He pulled away, not wanting to but needing to speak.

“I need to know…Bakura, did you mean to summon the Lethe?”

“No!” he snapped. “I’m not that weak. I don’t need my bad memories wiped away to be happy. I already know exactly what I am when I forget my past, and I won’t be a pawn again.”

Malik slipped a hand under the sheets and squeezed Bakura’s leg. His skin was so warm.

“I had to ask.” He needed to be sure. He couldn’t keep wondering if Bakura was hiding how deep his suffering was.

“You were wrong about something. I’m not happy to spite the people who didn’t want me to be. I just _am_. I don’t need some big, profound reason for it. I just am.”

“You heard me?”

“I guess the memory of your chat with the Lethe got put back in me along with the rest of my memories. Blah, blah, magical bullshit. You make me happy. Ryou makes me happy. Playing Monster World and making the new game and eating steak and having sex makes me happy. It hurts, I won’t deny that. It always will.” Bakura cuddled into Malik and nuzzled his neck. “The good outweighs the bad. That’s enough for me.”

“I guess it’s not enough for me. I need the pain to be worth something.”

“Is it?”

Malik kissed Bakura on his nose, making it crinkle adorably. “Yeah, it is.”

“Ah, shit, I’m not gonna be able to have sex for a while, huh? _Fuck_.”

Ryou arrived with the rest of Bakura’s things and helped Malik put them away in his closets and drawers. Bakura fell asleep while they did so, and stayed asleep when the nurse Malik hired set up the monitoring equipment. Bakura would never put up with a live-in nurse, so she would only see him once a day to check up on him and be available in an emergency. The physical therapist that had to come into their home was already an invasion and neither Malik nor Bakura were willing to deal with much more.

“I’ll teach you cleansing spells,” Ryou said while folding Bakura’s clothes into neat piles. Malik cleared out drawers for Bakura’s things a long time ago, awaiting the day Ryou gave his blessing for Bakura to move in. “You’ll do them, right? At least once a week.”

Malik paused in hanging Bakura’s hoodies in the closet. “Are you saying you’re alright with him staying here?”

“Not really,” Ryou sighed, “If nothing else, he’s proven he _shouldn’t_ be away from me. I also know he won’t be dragged out of here after he recovers. You saved him, though, so I’m making the best of it. You need to promise me you’ll take this seriously.”

“I will.” It stung to know Ryou doubted him, but the sting made him all the more determined to prove himself.

They finished sorting Bakura’s things, which Malik liked seeing hanging next to his own clothes in the closet, liked seeing Bakura’s artwork hanging on the walls, liked laying his journal at their bedside. It felt like coming home.

Malik laid on Bakura’s left while Ryou tucked himself into his right. They both listened to his gentle breathing for a while before Bakura quietly said,

“If you want to cast spells, you better hocus focus on your craft.”

“Oh, fuck you! That was _awful_!”


End file.
